The day will begin with a ghost bike ceremony at 12:30 pm, followed by a vigil and silent march from the State House to City Hall to demand swifter action to prevent traffic deaths.

We know you are angry and sad about recent fatalities on our streets. So are we. These kinds of tragedies are avoidable with better, proactive planning and policy. Stand with us to show that life-saving infrastructure improvements cannot wait.

While Boston has made some progress toward reducing injurious crashes, change has not come quickly enough. In 2017, there were 1,162 cyclist and pedestrian incidents that prompted an EMS response — or more than 3 per day. Meanwhile, Boston’s bike fatality rate continues to be higher than the rates in comparable cities. (It’s one reason Boston fell this year to #20 in Bicycling Magazine’s ranking of the best bike cities in America.)

Friday’s fatal crash, in which a dump truck driver hit and killed BU graduate student Meng Jin as he biked near the Museum of Science, serves as another devastating reminder of the dangers posed by deadly street design. (A ghost bike ceremony will be held on Sunday before the rally and demonstration; for more information and to RSVP head here.)

On Sunday, members of the Coalition will be placing silhouettes at crash sites throughout the Boston area, as well as statewide, as part of the #CrashNotAccident awareness campaign. Crashes are not accidents — they’re the tragic, preventable results of inadequate planning and policy. People make mistakes; our streets must be designed so those mistakes are not fatal. Please join us to ensure that these lives are not forgotten and to demand safe streets for all in our communities.

Please dress warmly and wear yellow in remembrance of those we’ve lost to traffic crashes.

We also encourage you to invite your elected state and local representatives. Show them the human toll of dangerous street design and urge them to support Vision Zero. You can find your city legislators here, and your state legislators here.

Help us spread the word via social media by using the following hashtags before and during the event: #WDoR2018 #CrashNotAccident #SafetyOverSpeed #VisionZero

The vast majority of these traffic crashes are preventable through engineering, education and enforcement. In numbers, we can recognize our loved ones, and also demand action from our elected officials.

We hope to see you there on Sunday, November 18th.

The post World Day of Remembrance, Sunday Nov. 18 appeared first on Boston Cyclists Union.

After more than ten years, our award winning Bike Shop is moving out of 18 Bartlett Square in Jamaica Plain when our lease expires at the end of this year in December. In our recent Letter from the Director we shared our plan to move the Shop into the Brewery building with our Hub at 284 Amory Street providing increased visibility in an established business environment where we plan to build a seamless connection between our Bike Shop and Youth Pathways. By integrating our space, we plan to diversify apprenticeships for teens and increase participation among women, girls, and vulnerable communities in many aspects of our social enterprise beyond mechanics, including retail management, accounting, marketing, and leadership development. We plan to continue providing youth with income, tangible skills, connections to others and a safe space to grow as we recognize our full potential as a Bike Shop and Training Center for Youth, while continuing to feature expert mechanic services, refurbished bicycles, parts and accessories, and increased access to clinics on bicycle safety and mechanics. Please check our Unite Under One Roof FAQs, as we continue to share updates on our plan’s progress.

Photo by Chris Leong

How You Can Help

Use the bicycle as a vehicle for social change.

It has never been more crucial to take action to stop climate change, and we are proud to be an organization that has been able to put both environmental sustainability and social justice at the forefront of what we do each and every day. Our commitment to keeping thousands of bicycles out of the waste stream by giving these bikes a new life and continued value whether shipped internationally or refurbished locally by our youth and shop staff means that more underserved communities have access to environmentally friendly means of transportation, mutually benefitting both the earth and its inhabitants.

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Donate now.

Donating to support our mission is the best way you can ensure that Bikes Not Bombs’ Youth Pathways, International Partnerships and Bike Shop programs continue to grow. If each of the recipients of this e-newsletter donated just $10 today, we would be able to realize the dream of our Hub and Shop integration more fully by next year.

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Shop our fall sale.

This weekend, Friday, October 19th 1pm-6:30pm, Saturday, October 20th 9am-4pm, and Sunday, October 21st 12pm-4pm, we will be having a Fall Sale at the Bike Shop.Everything (except service, repairs and labor) will be 15% off. This includes:

refurbished and new bikes

used and new parts

accessories

apparel

The more you buy, the less we have to move. Every dollar you spend at the Bike Shop will help ensure our local youth programs and international partnership work continues to thrive. Every time you buy a refurbished bike, you keep a bike out of the waste stream and give it a new life.

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Take this short survey about our Bike Shop.

We value your feedback! By taking this short survey about our Bike Shop, you will help us understand what kinds of bikes and gear you’re looking for and how we may improve to serve your needs… and you just might win a BNB T-shirt! Please contact our Director of Learning and Evaluation, René Milet at rene@bikesnotbombs.org with any questions regarding this survey.

Today is the day! Cambridge Bicycle Safety invites you to join us at 6:00 pm TONIGHT at City Hall, Wednesday October 17th, for the Rally for Safer Bike Lanes, our most important bike safety event of the year.

To show why this matters we will be putting 160 bikes on the City Hall lawn to represent how many times each year first responders are called to a crash when a person on a bike is hit by a car.

RSVP now on facebook and show up at 6pm.

Bring your bike and bike lights!

Invite friends and family who support completing the network of protected bike lanes.

At the rally we’ll be officially launching a petition campaign to complete a city-wide network of protected bike lanes in five years and you’ll have the opportunity to hear the stories of people from all walks of life in Cambridge who bike and walk.

A citywide network of protected bike lanes would make 40% of crashes physically impossible, and many others less likely. The infrastructure changes we’re advocating for will also make the city safer for pedestrians to navigate and help avoid tragedies such as this year’s.

Join us in showing city officials that there is widespread support for implementing these lanes in order to create a safe, city-wide protected network that serves residents of all ages and abilities.

Weigh In on the Massachusetts Pedestrian Plan

Image: The Boston Globe

A draft plan of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s statewide Pedestrian Transportation Plan is available for public comment through October 17th. We need you to give feedback in order to make the plan as strong as it can be. Review the plan here and act now!

City of Boston Releases Vision Zero Update

Image: WalkUP Roslindale

Earlier this month, the City of Boston released a 2017/2018 Vision Zero Update, tracking their progress in reducing fatal and severe crashes, and summarizing their progress on safety improvement policies and projects. In addition, the City announced five new Neighborhood Slow Streets zones, which will receive traffic calming measures and safety improvements that will provide visual and physical cues to slow drivers to 20 mph.

The Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition will be releasing a third annual progress report for the City of Boston in early 2019. The Coalition is committed to reviewing the City’s performance annually to ensure public accountability in reaching its goals. To read the Coalition’s 2016 and 2017 reports, click here, and stay tuned for the 2018 report.

If you are interested in learning more about Vision Zero efforts around the country, check out the Vision Zero Cities conference taking place in NYC on November 7 and 8.

Get in the Zone at Our October Advocacy Committee Meeting

What is zoning and transit-oriented development (TOD)? How does it affect you, your neighborhood, and what gets built (or not built)?

Join us at our next Advocacy Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 24th as we welcome Jarred Johnson of Transit Matters/Codman Square CDC and a guest from the City of Somerville (currently undergoing a citywide re-zoning process) to shed light on all things zoning and TOD. Learn more about current zoning and displacement issues in Metro Boston, as well as tips for better advocacy in this space that intersects so closely with transportation issues.

RSVP to let us know you can join us!

Register for Our Upcoming StreetTalks

Seats are filling up fast for our two upcoming StreetTalks. RSVP now to reserve your space!

Everyone in Metro Boston deserves safe, affordable, and reliable transportation options, but communities of color have been chronically neglected when it comes to prioritizing improvements on our streets. Join us for our fall StreetTalk where we will discuss why and how city transportation planning needs to address these systemic inequities head-on.

Join us for the 8th Annual StreetTalk 10-in-1 as we invite 10 innovative transportation and community thinkers to take the stage and share their big ideas. Enjoy 10 rapid-fire “TED”-style talks, with plenty of inspiration to be had! One of our most popular events of the year – don’t miss it!

Job Opportunities

Manager of Fare Inspection Design, MBTA: The MBTA seeks a Manager for Fare Inspection Design to design the fare inspection process under a proof of payment system as part of a new Automated Fare Collection project. The successful candidate must demonstrate attention to detail, understanding of complex technological and policy issues, and ability to work on a cross-functional team. To learn more and apply, click here.

Director of Transition, AFC 2.0, MBTA: The MBTA seeks an experienced manager to complete the transition of internal and external customers to the MBTA’s next-generation fare collection system, Automated Fare Collection (AFC) 2.0. The successful candidate must demonstrate a depth of experience in working across a large organization, with a wide range of stakeholder groups, working directly with the public, and marshalling resources toward a time-critical milestone. To learn more and apply, click here.

Various, City of Boston Transportation Department: The City of Boston is still hiring to fill 20 new positions! To learn more, click here.

Tonight, the City Council will vote on whether the Inman Square intersection redesign project, now a two-year process, goes forward. These safety improvements have been proposed in response to the death of Amanda Phillips in the intersection in 2016 and because of the high crash rates and injuries for people biking, walking and driving. The current design was not our first choice as we laid out in our recommendations last year, but city staff should be commended for including needed protected infrastructure throughout the intersection and some best-in-class transit improvements. We all need to contact the City Council and let them know that we cannot wait another two years for a protected intersection in Inman Square!

Take Action:

Contact city councilors at council@cambridgema.gov(and bccinfo@cambridgebikesafety.org) and ask them to vote in support of moving the Inman Square redesign forward because we can’t wait any longer for protected bicycle lanes and other Vision Zero safety improvements.

The existing Inman Square intersection is dangerous by design for all road users. In terms of major squares of Cambridge, it is as bad as Porter Square in overall crashes, and second only to Central Square for bicycle crashes. Pedestrian crashes also occur due to the long intersection that encourages speeding and the misalignment of crosswalks with desire lines. Historically, a third of all crashes in the intersection resulted in injuries requiring EMS.

Other users of the intersection will also benefit from redesigning for safety: with substantially reduced crossing distances and shorter signal times, pedestrians will face less delay and lower vehicle speeds. Bus riders from will benefit from the city’s first floating bus stops, which do not require merging with traffic, and a proposed queue jump that allows buses to get ahead of traffic at the leading signal. This means less delay on the 69 connecting East Cambridge.

The city is ready to move forward and this vote is the last step. Help support protected bike lanes by emailing council@cambridgema.gov (bcc info@cambridgebikesafety.org) and/or attend the city council meeting tonight, May 21, at Cambridge City Hall at 5:30 to speak on this subject (register here, call 617-349-4280, or sign up in person).

Read our full statement on the proposed redesign.

Read the home rule petition the Council will be voting on.

A little more on what’s happening tonight:

The City Council is voting on a home rule petition which is necessary move the design forward, because a part of Vellucci plaza will be moved across the street. If the city council votes yes the petition will be sent to the statehouse for approval. Then the city will start building protected bike lanes in Inman square!

If the Council votes no, the city will likely have to start from scratch with a new design which doesn’t touch Vellucci plaza. And who knows what will happen for future bike lane projects.

City Councilors Michelle Wu (at large) and Josh Zakim (Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, Mission Hill) will ask other councilors to join them tomorrow in urging the state to use barriers to protect bicyclists when the revamped Longfellow Bridge finally opens later this month.

At the regular council meeting, the two will formally ask other councilors to agree to a resolution calling on MassDOT to take one of the vehicle lanes on the inbound side and convert it to bicycle use, with something separating the cars and trucks from the bicyclists.

In their formal request, the two say the traffic disaster predicted when the state began shutting parts of the bridge five years ago never materialized, and that more people now commute by bicycle than when construction began. Also:

The incline on the first half of the inbound side of the bridge makes it particularly challenging to accommodate cyclists of varying abilities without a lane wide enough to facilitate passing.

Today is the day. We are rallying in Porter Square to say two deaths in one square is too many, that these and other road fatalities were preventable with better infrastructure, and that we want #SafeStreetsNow. We want life-saving improvements to the current redesign of Porter Square and greater action to build out a city-wide protected network within 5 years.

Join us for an evening of action in the heart of one of Cambridge’s busiest intersections. The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band will be playing, and we will hear stories from a number of community members impacted by poor infrastructure. We will end with a massive people-protected bike lane on Somerville Ave and Mass Ave in a show of solidarity for vulnerable road users.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (BRAIN) — The North American Bikeshare Association said its helped defeat a Florida bill that would have replaced local control of bike share programs with a statewide policy. The Florida House of Representatives and Senate introduced bills in December that imposed a statewide bikeshare policy. NABSA said the bills did not account for safety, data privacy, right of way management, or the needs of communities, among other issues